Free Fall
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: She floats, spinning endlessly, out of control...


_She floats, spinning endlessly, out of control. She cannot force her arms, her legs to move, can't close her eyes to cover the sight of the fleet laid out before her. She's never seen it from quite this perspective, although she came close once. Even as she has that thought, the glittering stars of the ships' drives begin to fade into a gray haze, becoming less distinct at the edges of her vision._

_The haze that clouds her view owns a strange beauty of its own. Not colorless at all, but made up of all colors, bright flashes of lightning at the edges, leaving reds and blues, greens and golds and purples burned into her failing retinas._

:: :: ::

Cally's first clear memory was of losing a baby tooth. She had no idea how old she was, only that she was a small child. Nor did she recall the details of where she was, although she had always assumed that she was at home.

The tooth was loose and she worried at it with her tongue all day, even as she worried about what it might mean. If she lost a tooth, would she still be able to chew? Or would she have to suffer through her mama's oatmeal forever? She asked her brother Pollux about that, but he just ran to get his twin and the two of them told her that they'd better get that tooth out, or she'd swallow it with her next meal. Awful things would come to pass if she swallowed it, but they never told her what those awful things might be.

Cally was so worried by that time that she let her brothers rid her of that dangerous tooth. They tied thread securely around it and then tied the other end around a doorknob. She didn't remember much beyond that, whether it hurt or not when Castor slammed the door shut, whether the tooth came out or not. The only thing she remembered was thinking, even as young as she was, that there had to be some better way.

:: :: ::

Graduating from high school at the top of her class, there was never any question in Cally's mind that she would continue on to college. The question had only ever been of how to pay for it. Her parents weren't rich; every bit of money they had went right back into her mother's bakery. Her brothers both had their own homes and children to pay for; willing or not, gift or loan, they had no money available for their little sister.

So instead of going to college right away, she went to work at the local garage. Her brothers had worked there while she was in school and she'd gone there every day after classes, watching them work and sometimes lending a hand. She'd always been good with her hands and quick to learn and the new owner, one of the mechanics who'd worked with her brothers, was glad to have her. It didn't pay much, but she lived with her parents and saved every scrap of coin. Dental school was just a dream, but she planned to do everything in her power to make that dream a reality.

One day, as she ate lunch in the tiny employee break room, her gaze rested on a glossy poster stuck to the refrigerator door with magnets. It had been there for a while, but something about it caught her eye that afternoon and she really looked at it, at the crisp lines of the blue uniform the man in the poster wore, at the proud set of his shoulders framed by the flag of the Twelve Colonies. Half-eaten sandwich in hand, Cally stood and walked over for a closer look. She focused on the words beneath the picture, but the only ones that truly meant anything to her just then were "Earn money for college."

Finishing off her sandwich, she stared at those words until they were burned into her brain. Abruptly, she tore one of the tabs from the bottom of the poster. On it was printed the address of the local recruitment office for the Colonial Fleet. With that slip of paper gripped tightly in her right hand, she left the garage.

Four hours later, she was no longer simply Cally Henderson, the Henderson twins' little sister, but Crewman Apprentice Callandra Henderson of the Colonial Fleet. Upon completion of four years of service, the Fleet would pay for her tuition, room and board, and supplies for both her undergraduate classes and her specialization in the field of dentistry. According to her recruiter, she could do anything she wanted to in the Fleet, maybe even be assigned close to home where she could see her family and friends as often as she liked.

That was the last time Cally felt as though she had any control over her own life. Not long after, she learned the first unofficial truism of the military: Your recruiter lied.

:: :: ::

Straight out of basic training, her first posting was to the battle cruiser _Vortex_ where she became part of the deck crew that kept her complement of six Vipers and two Raptors flying. She couldn't really say that she enjoyed the work overall, but it was definitely more interesting than working on cars and there were times that the more delicate repairs she executed felt almost like performing surgery.

For the next two years, she worked as a mechanic on a total of three different ships in the Colonial Fleet. Twice she requested that she be moved into a different job; both times she was turned down. She was too good with the mechanical details and she had to do what the Fleet needed most.

During the first half of her enlistment, she saw her family three times: at her graduation from basic, when she received her first posting off world, and at her father's funeral.

:: :: ::

The final posting of her enlistment period, again as a mechanic, but with a promotion to specialist, was aboard the battlestar _Galactica_. Cally had never before served on a ship with so many birds or so many hangar decks to house them. Her orders were to report to Chief Petty Officer Tyrol on Hangar Deck 5; once on board, it took her nearly ten minutes to find the hangar deck and there were at least a dozen men and women there in orange or yellow coveralls, any one of whom could be the Chief.

One in particular stood out from the others, though, in part because of the raised voice of the balding man in officer's duty blues who stood in front of him, gesturing emphatically as he not quite shouted. The only reaction she saw from the crewman was a flush that rose up from his collar; his face remained impassive. Finally, himself red faced and angry, the officer left, brushing past Cally as he did so. She approached the burly man in orange who watched the man leave, hands on his hips and arms akimbo.

A little overwhelmed by the sheer size of the ship and the number of people aboard her, but determined not to give in to it, Cally stopped in front of the man. Before she could ask him where she might find the Chief, he looked down at her and said, "You wanna make the gods laugh? Just tell 'em your plans."

She must have looked as confused as she felt, because after a moment the man grinned at her. "Sorry. I'm Chief Tyrol. You must be Specialist Henderson."

"Cally, sir."

"Well, Specialist Cally," he said as he pulled her gear bag from her shoulder and slung it over his own, "let's get you settled."

:: :: ::

The first time Cally had sex was in a supply closet on _Galactica_ with fellow crewman Jacob Prosna. It was messy and uncomfortable and he wasn't the one she truly wanted to be with, but that was okay. She was pretty sure she wasn't the one Jake wanted to be with, either, although in his case, the true object of desire was back home on Caprica, not someone he saw every day. But the Chief was with someone else and it was against regulations to fraternize with a superior officer anyway. Not that it seemed to stop the Chief.

The second time was much better and that led to a third and then a fourth and without making a conscious decision, Cally found herself in a relatively serious relationship with Jake. He even asked her to marry him, but she was saved from making a conscious decision about that by the Cylons.

She still remembered the smell when he died in her arms.

:: :: ::

The most frightened she had ever been in her life wasn't when she and Dee were taken hostage aboard the _Astral Queen_ and that stupid frak tried to rape her. She was too frakking angry to worry about being afraid and the mother frakker deserved what he got. She still tasted his blood in her mouth, salty and metallic.

No, the most frightening thing was when Crashdown held a gun to her head.

She knew then that she was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, betrayed by her own body which literally wouldn't move to save her life, she was going to die with a bullet in her brain, fired by a fellow human. A fellow human who had decided that she was expendable, that she was going to engage in a suicide mission against the Cylons or she wasn't worth allowing to live.

No one was more shocked than Cally when Gaius Baltar, of all people, shot Crashdown to save her life.

:: :: ::

She never planned to kill Boomer. She didn't roll out of her rack one morning and decide to put a bullet into her. But it happened, all the same.

Standing there in that corridor, Jammer's words about the Chief probably being a Cylon, too, melded together with the shouts of "Kill her!" and "Frakking toaster!" and "Traitor!" The sound of it grew louder and louder until everything else was drowned out and when Boomer appeared, heavily shackled and surrounded by Marines, followed by Chief Tyrol, something inside Cally snapped.

Time slowed. The crowd shouted for the toaster's death. Cally's vision narrowed until it included nothing but Boomer and Tyrol. Tyrol, who was throwing away his career and even his life for the enemy, for a gods damned toaster.

It was then that she realized the depth of her feelings for him.

Almost instinctively, Cally grabbed someone's sidearm from its hip holster – she learned later, at her trial, that it belonged to Lt. Tucker, one of the Viper pilots. Red noise pounded through her brain and left room for only one thought: she had to save the Chief, couldn't allow him to destroy himself for a murdering Cylon.

In one jerky motion, she raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

:: :: ::

For a time, she thought the Chief would never speak to her again, other than what was strictly necessary for them both to perform their jobs. He hated her, she knew that, but even in the face of his hatred and contempt, and later, when her jaw was wired shut after he beat her nearly to death, she couldn't stop loving him. And when, in a moment of weakness, she told him how she felt, she thought he would leave and never come back.

But instead of leaving, he stayed. He was clearly nervous, and ashamed of what he had done to her. After that afternoon in sickbay, they never spoke of it again, but it was always there, lurking beneath the surface, just as Boomer's death at Cally's hands, another topic they never discussed, was always there between them.

:: :: ::

In the midst of celebration, Cally was so furious she wanted to hit something. Or someone. Hard.

"I love it when your eyes flash like that."

She swung instinctively, before the voice behind the words penetrated her angry haze. Even as he caught her fist before it connected with his jaw, she realized it wasn't Galen. "Oh, my gods, I'm so sorry!"

Hotdog just grinned and kept hold of her fist. "Glad I'm not the one you're mad at." There was laughter – and not a little ambrosia – in his voice. "Trouble in paradise?"

"No. Yes." He raised one brow in question. "Maybe."

He finally released her hand only to place a jar into her palm and wrap her fingers around it. "Sounds like you need this more than I do, pretty Cally."

She looked down at their hands, at the contrast of his darker skin against the paleness of hers. Hotdog thought she was pretty, even if Galen didn't seem to frakking care. He pulled his hands away from hers; the glide of his thumb across her inner wrist was no accident. Lifting the jar to her lips, she slanted a look at his face. "Thanks, Hotdog, I think maybe I do."

"It's Brendan." His eyes didn't leave her face as she drank the fiery liquid. "Wanna dance?"

When Cally woke the next morning, she had no clear memory of the night before, just bits and pieces, flashes of laughter and dancing, of strong arms and broad shoulders and smooth skin. She was alone and there was no sign that Brendan had ever been there. Maybe she had dreamed the whole thing.

Thirty-eight weeks later, give or take a couple of days, Nicholas Stephen Tyrol was born.

:: :: ::

The world around her exploded, sending dirt and shrapnel flying, stinging Cally's eyes, her skin. Nicky was too terror-stricken even to cry; she did her best to shield him from the worst of it as she ran, shouting desperately for Galen. He'd disappeared hours before, gone to one of his meetings. All around her was chaos as people screamed, ducking for cover as they sprinted toward escape. Escape from the Cylons. Escape from New Caprica.

A bullet whined past her ear; she imagined the heat of it on her skin and thanked the gods Nicky was sheltered by her body. The ground shook beneath her feet as another nearby explosion caused her to stumble on a chunk of what had recently been one of the few solid buildings on the planet. She went down hard, rolling at the last second, wrenching her right arm painfully as she protected her baby as much as she could from the impact.

She struggled to regain her feet until a tight grip on her elbow pulled her up, strong hands propelled her toward a waiting transport. "Hurry!" the dark-haired woman shouted. Cally didn't know her name, but she sometimes saw her with Laura Roslin at the school. "There's still space on board!"

Cally ran toward the promised sanctuary; the woman ran in the opposite direction and Cally didn't see her again.

:: :: ::

Cally found the napkin in Galen's pocket. Joe's Bar. By itself, it was nothing, but Galen had been acting strangely for weeks. He worked long hours, or so he said, and spent as much time away as he did at home. She looked over to Nicky, playing quietly on a blanket on the floor. Galen had told her he was working on a project tonight and would be late coming home.

Sudden bile rose, burning her throat. Swallowing it back, she crumpled the napkin in her fist and swept Nicky up from the floor, settling him into her arms. She tried to tell herself that everything was okay, that she had a loving husband and a sweet little boy who she and Galen both adored, but inside, in the part of herself from which she couldn't hide, she knew it wasn't true. Galen had settled for her, and Nicky wasn't his.

As soon as she set foot in the bar, she saw them. Galen sat at a table with Tory Foster, President Roslin's aide, all thick, glorious hair and perfect, smooth skin and sophistication and everything that Cally could never be. Foster leaned in close and smiled at Galen, whispered something to him. It was already an intimate little scene, but then she slid one hand up his arm in a soft caress, laughed at a joke Galen must have made, and Cally saw red.

A wailing Nicky clinging to her shoulder, Cally charged toward them, ready for a confrontation. Her anger and her fear together were so great that her stomach began to churn and bile again rose to choke her, cutting off the angry tirade that threatened to swamp her. Instead of emerging triumphant over this gorgeous woman who was trying to steal her husband, Cally vomited on the floor before she even reached their table and her humiliation was complete. She fought free of the solicitous hands of those who tried to steady her, to help her, and ran from the bar.

The image of Tory tossing back the remaining ambrosia in her glass, a half smile on her lips as she watched Cally, haunted her dreams that night.

:: :: ::

_Galen is a Cylon._

Everything Cally had ever believed was suddenly and irrevocably suspect.

_Galen is a Cylon._

Her husband was a frakking toaster. She had frakked a toaster.

_Galen is a Cylon._

It was an endless loop in her head as Galen stood behind her, spoke to her so sweetly, concerned about how poorly she'd been sleeping lately and wanting to work things out between them, make things easier for her. Panicked, unable to move – _Crashdown with his gun to her head_ – Cally stared at little Nicky, untainted by anything Cylon.

It wasn't until Galen spoke of having another child with her – _oh, dear gods, no_ – that the panic released its hold. She lunged for the wrench on the table beside Galen's toolbox and slammed it into the Cylon's head. There was a sickening crunch and blood began to flow. She hit him again. He fell to the floor and was still. Grabbing his keys, she pulled Nicky up from his crib, still wrapped in his blanket. Blindly, she ran.

:: :: ::

Nicky screamed at the top of his lungs and Cally let go of the airlock controls, wrapped him up in her arms to comfort him. She moved through a nightmare.

"You want to kill me, go ahead," Foster said softly. She spread her hands wide, the picture of innocence, and took a step toward Cally. "Don't do this to yourself, to your child. To Nicky."

Cally's arms tightened protectively around her very human little boy. "Get the frak away! You're not getting your hands on my son! Not you! Not Galen!" she shouted at Foster. "The frakker used me!"

Nicky cried harder, wailing in Cally's ear. She knew he was frightened, that her own fear made his that much worse, but she was doing the only thing she could think of to make it go away. No frakking way that toaster was going to take her son back to his Cylon friends and no way was she going to let him get her pregnant with some half-breed abomination, either. Cally reached again for the airlock controls. Foster, another frakking Cylon, took one more step closer and Cally instinctively tightened her hold on Nicky.

"He didn't know," Foster claimed. "None of us did." Cally couldn't take her eyes, stinging from too many tears, off Foster's face. She shook her head in denial as the Cylon continued, "We didn't know until we entered that nebula."

Cally closed her eyes as a wave of pain squeezed her heart. The nebula. That was when everything changed between her and Galen, when everything went wrong. Foster opened her mouth to say something else, but Cally stopped her. "Oh, shut the frak up!" She grabbed again at the controls.

Another step closer. "All we know is that we're Cylons. But in every other way, we're still the same people."

"You're frakking machines," Cally sobbed, her sweat slick hands slipping on the controls. The Cylon kept talking, but Cally couldn't make sense anymore of what she said. Nicky squirmed in her arms. Her beloved little boy. "I can't live like this," she whispered. "It's a frakking nightmare." She rested her cheek against Nicky's soft hair; he smelled of soap and baby and faintly of algae-based mashed carrots.

"You don't have to do this." The Cylon sounded so reasonable. "Cally, he's your son."

The tears flowed harder. "Oh, gods." Cally choked on the words. Her legs gave way and she fell, holding Nicky tightly as she sobbed, her tears soaking into his shirt, creating a dark stain above his heart. "What have I done? I'm so sorry."

Foster murmured soothing words as she helped Cally to her feet. Her touch was warm, gentle, that of a friend. The Cylon tried to take Nicky from her and at first Cally fought, clutching at her baby hard enough to make him howl, but finally she allowed it, not wanting to hurt him anymore. As her panic receded, she realized she didn't want him to die, didn't want to die herself.

Maybe what Foster had said was true. Maybe they really didn't know they were Cylons. Maybe…

The blow to her face took her completely by surprise. The next thing she knew, she was alone in the airlock, the lights strobing, stabbing into her eyes. She saw Foster in the control room, Nicky in her arms. As Cally watched helplessly, Foster stroked Nicky's cheek and turned so that Cally could more clearly see as her hand continued on to activate the airlock controls.

:: :: ::

_Sudden pain rips through her body as her extremities freeze; her lungs struggle to pull in air that doesn't exist in the vacuum of space. The haze clouding her vision begins to turn red as her blood vessels burst. She knows she'll be gone soon; it surprises her that she can still feel or think anything at all._

_It's only been a minute, maybe two, since the Cylon took her boy and her life._

_I'm sorry, Nicky._

_But no words come; she has no breath left to speak them._


End file.
